Christian Wolmar

There is much cause to celebrate in the rail industry. The Olympics were an amazing triumph for public transport and the rail industry in particular. They were advertised as the public transport games and that is exactly what they turned out to be. Fears about transport chaos, got up by the media, proved to be groundless (as I had predicted). There is a wider message to be drawn from this. Public ...

It must be tempting for the organisers of the London Olympics to do a Jim Callaghan: ‘Chaos, what chaos? ‘ After months of panic and speculation about transport gridlock, the streets and trains of London were functioning with only occasional normal hiccup on the first working day that coincided with the Games. Transport has quickly become the biggest non-story since Harold Camping’s warning that the world would end on May ...

The dire warnings about not using cars issued by Transport for London for the Olympic period beg a wider question. If we  are all able to dispense so easily with using cars in central London during what seems to be an ever extending period, then do we need them much anyway. Transport for London's whole transport policy in relation to road space is based on the notion that nothing must be ...

Not much unites the two main London mayoral candidates, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, popularly known since the election is something of a celebrity beauty contest as Ken and Boris, except their joint desire to get control of London train franchises for Transport for London. Although the precise way this could be done is difficult to work out, since there would have to be a boundary somewhere – Network SouthEast ...

If you live in London, a little bit of Soviet Russia will be coming down your way during next year’s Olympics. Not the oversized shotputters of dubious sexual provenance who used to clean up on the gold medals in the female events, or, at the other end of the scale, the dainty gymnasts whose bodies were also sacrificed in the pursuit of honouring Communism. No, what we will be getting are ...

After hearing of the terrible death of a second person at Bow within a few weeks on the cycle superhighway, I tweeted that the thinking behind the scheme needs revisiting. Iain Dale, the consummate Conservative blogger and LBC presenter tweeted back saying it was a 'knee jerk' reaction on my part, and sprang to the defence of Boris Johnson and his cycle schemes See: http://bit.ly/sU9Lgn I think Iain misses the point ...